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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045675">Ordinary Girl</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Unqualified1/pseuds/The_Unqualified1'>The_Unqualified1</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Control (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And then the Hiss come, F/F, Got a little Intense There, If Jesse didn’t get away, Janitor’s Assistant, Mold Mission, P7 - Freeform, Pre-Hiss, Sorta Slice of Life in FBC, This’ll be fun as hell, add tags as we go, headcannons, talking to plants</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:08:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30045675</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Unqualified1/pseuds/The_Unqualified1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse and Dylan Faden were brought to the Bureau 17 years ago, after the traumatic events of the AWE of Ordinary, Maine.</p><p>Potential had been seen, and cultivated, and grown, and now they found themselves here. Fitting into their rightful places.</p><p>Dylan as the Director, appointed and being mentored by Trench.</p><p>Jesse as the Janitor’s Assistant.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dylan Faden &amp; Jesse Faden, Jesse Faden &amp; Emily Pope, Jesse Faden &amp; Polaris, Jesse Faden/Emily Pope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. P7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ya’ll this was a trip. I had so many random ideas for oneshots that needed a backdrop and this became the one I painted it over.</p><p>What if Jesse didn’t get away? What if they were both there this whole time and used to ‘encourage’ each others growth. Pitted against each other in some way to make them tame and stronger and push to get that next Director. And then it worked. And what would they do with the other one? Well... Ahti needs an assistant.</p><p>I have really really enjoyed putting it together, I hope you’lll enjoy this crazy ride. I’ll update character tags as we go, we’ll most likely have everyone in some capacity.</p><p>But yeah, thank you so so much for giving it a try :D Let’s see how this goes *zippity do*</p><p>(Shout outs to Ashtree11 Ashley_Avaryss and Dikhotomia for letting me throw snippets, ideas, and constant streams of consciousness your way as I dig myself further and further into this fandom)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fingers slid slowly along the metal desk, as if not committed one way or the other. As if those blue eyes that cut like a knife and burned like a sun at the edge of implosion weren’t watching every inch gained.</p><p>Some days she got the sense she wanted to stop, and she would. Contact was always... difficult. Sharp. Burning. Threatening... But this was probably why she was in these session. And this was their weird new game they played.</p><p>One of their most popular as it turned out. But there was something today... something in her that felt mischievous. Daring.</p><p>“You’re doing very well Jesse.” The doctor said reassuringly. In the bright way that smelled like lemons.</p><p>She continued her path. Fingers still sliding slowly with the sound of air, skin, and metal gently humming.</p><p>And then they stopped as they made contact with the doctor’s palm laid on the table. This was the closest she’d ever gotten, and she let herself celebrate her minor victory and exist in the contact.</p><p>She had ambitions of trailing up the side of her arm. Of laying her palm over hers...</p><p>But that would have to wait. She felt the next inhale sting and her eyes sliding from one hand to the other.</p><p>She’d pushed far enough today. They’d made progress. And her palm was... softer than anticipated.</p><p>“How was that?” Asked Emily Pope, assistant to the reclusive ‘genius’ Caspar Darling (that Jesse called Dorkling in her own private thoughts) and her assigned physician Mondays through Thursdays, 2 to 4.</p><p>“Was fine.” Jesse said, deflecting her victory. But Emily always saw right through her. Maybe that was why she liked bullshitting her so much. Just knowing someone cared enough to call her out.</p><p>“Just fine? I’d say it was quite the feat. Don’t undersell yourself Jesse, That was a big step.” She smiled in her infectious way, that made Jesse smile too.</p><p>“How did it feel, <em>really</em>?”</p><p>“Good. Your hands are soft.” Jesse blurted before thinking better of it. And then when she found herself thinking better of it... “Softer than steel at least.”</p><p><em>Smooth Jesse. Incredibly smooth.</em> She thought dreadfully.</p><p>“Well thank you, I use a citrus lotion when I remember to.” Emily laughed. That explained the lemons. “When you’re using your hands this much you gotta take care of them.”</p><p>“I should... try that some time.” Jesse said, stupidly, wondering if a pit could open up under her feet and swallow her whole to save her from herself.</p><p>Emily breathed a chuckle, smile not leaving or souring at her plight. “Yeah you should. Those are tools to be cherished.”</p><p>Jesse was pretty sure her ears were beat red. She’d never seen a beat but given the expression her flustered ears and it had a lot in common.</p><p>“At the end though... it felt sharp again.” Jesse said, squinting at the table. Remembering the sensation. She wished that feeling would go away, at least with Emily of all people. She’d never hurt her that way, and she hated that her brain cataloged it along with every other dirtbag that had.</p><p>“Hey,” she said in her soothing doctor voice. The one that always made her feel like she was being talked down to, but also... safe? In a kind of childish way. “That’s really ok Jesse. This was never going to solve itself over night. But a step forward is a step forward. It should be celebrated.”</p><p>Jesse nodded. The answer was obvious, just unsatisfactory. But she still liked hearing Emily tell it anyway.</p><p>“Welp, til next week Doc?” She said moving away from the air that was slightly suffocating in her orbit and grabbing her blue over coat. She slid it on over her black tank top and the thin layer of sweat sticking to her arms.</p><p>“Til next week.” Emily agreed with a smile. “You heading toward Langston’s sector after this?”</p><p>“Yup. He says one of the AI’s is acting up again. Wanted my <em>paranormal</em> opinion.” She made air quotes around paranormal, and Emily nodded.</p><p>“Would you mind taking this to him? It’s some case files that ended up in records. I thought he might enjoy having them on hand.” She moved over to her desk and slid her papers aside to find the folders in question.</p><p>Jesse noticed the other contents of her surprisingly messy desk. Several balled up post it notes, a calculator with a bow-tie sticker (kinda cute), a few company memos with different inked corners telling of their departments, and a new book.</p><p>A woman of many projects. She’d ask her what it was about next session.</p><p>“Here they are.” Emily finally pulled out the faded folders she sought with a satisfied smile and set them down at the end of the table. Jesse nodded in a ‘much obliged’ kinda way and took them up, stuffing them under her arm as she finished the buttons on her work coat.</p><p>For a moment it felt like the good doctor might be watching her, but she brushed off that idea, turning her face farther away. Even if she was, she was sure it was purely clinical. She was an anomaly after all. Like cryptic catnip.</p><p>She gave the good doctor a final farewell, noticing (and appreciating) the energetic wave goodbye.</p><p>That was one of the qualities she liked about her. She was one of the few who was happy to see her. One of the fewer who treated her as a human. One of the only... maybe the only... who called her Jesse.</p><p>She didn’t know if she believed in the physical or psychological therapy, but she was coming to find was she <em>did</em> believe in Emily Pope.</p><p>“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She asked quietly to her inner confidant.</p><p>Polaris rhythmically illuminated in response.</p><p>“You are such an instigator.” She scoffed shaking her head. “I was <em>not.</em>”</p><p>As she closed the office door she found her cart right where she’d left it. Unlocked the wheel brake with her foot and pushed the stacks of trash and cleaning utensils, making for the Panopticon. She donned her official ‘Janitor’s Assistant’ laniard that read her assigned name.</p><p>P7, printed in bold red letters under her staff photo. The rarely used, and sanctioned failure of Ordinary.</p><p>*******</p><p>She rolled her cart with one wheel that squeaked a hint more than the rest, avoiding most people’s eyes. There was nothing for her there, other than spite, pity, or indifference. And honestly? Same. These suit monkeys didn’t mean much to her one way or the other. Just unwilling colleagues.</p><p>She worked through to the ground floor of Central, headed for the Elevator, when she caught her boss bent over a planter box, looking very attuned, and mumbling to himself.</p><p>“Something wrong with Arnold?” She called, parking her cart and walking over to the palm brush, Arnold. Arnold Palm-er. Plant #0097 officially.</p><p>“He’s not looking himself.” Ahti said in his thick whereverian accent. She really still didn’t know much about the man, even after all this time, including, where he came from. But with everything else that happened in this place he was another thing accepted if not understood.</p><p>He was a friendly face. Useful in a pinch. Never on her case. And he had many of his own superstitions that he, and by approximation, she followed. He was rarely ever wrong in his crazy hunches, so she was coming to accept his hijinks without question.</p><p>One was naming and numbering all the plants.</p><p>“Well that’s no good. What’s got our green guy down?” Jesse came to stand at his side and look down the wilted stems of the once proud Arnold.</p><p>“Hmmm…” Ahti hummed in thought or in imitation of his favorite song. “There’s something in the air…”</p><p>As insightful as ever.</p><p>“Well buck up buddy, I got a watering can with your name on it.”</p><p>They seemed to turn a little greener at that and the leaves swayed slightly.</p><p>“That’s more like it.” Jesse smiled and pulled her canister from the cart. “Only the faucets finest here.”</p><p>She poured about half of it into the planter dirt and he indeed straightened up, not all the way but much closer to his natural self.</p><p>“All better.” Jesse concluded, screwing the cap back on her metal bottle.</p><p>“Yes, he’s not quite pissing honey, but much better than we found him.” Ahti mumbled, both hands resting on the hilt of his mop as he pondered intently. “You know, plants are often omens for what’s to come. Why do you think people read futures in tea leafs?”</p><p>“Horoscopes weren’t around yet?” Jesse offered leaning against her cart, and Ahti chuckled, waggling a finger in her direction.</p><p>“A sharp mind you have young Faden. Sharp indeed. Careful not to let it <em>cut</em>.” Whenever his parables came to a head she found that was her cue to go. So she left her boss(?) with a wave and headed for the long trek to probably her favorite part of the building, the paranormal bunker.</p><p>*******</p><p>The Panopticon was a really impressive structure, designed to house the altered items and objects of power and any thing else too powerful to exist in the human world.</p><p>“Guess we should be grateful we don’t have a cell in here, huh?” She muttered to Polaris, who hummed and blinked in agreement.</p><p>They came to stop in the main officeof the man who ran it all, Frederick Langston. He was a stout gent, mid thirties… or early forties… or somewhere in there, that wore a scruffy looking suit and took probably the most pride in his work of any one in the entire bureau. (besides perhaps Emily) He was consistently thorough, delightfully intrigued, and wholly committed.</p><p>And he was one of the few that addressed her as something other than P7, Lab Rat, or just a general disapproving glare.</p><p>“Hey Langston.” She called out as she entered into the office.</p><p>“Miss.” He nodded in greeting, breaking away from a conversation with an operative to come over to her. “Good to see you again Speaker.”</p><p>He was really proud of the nickname he’d coined for her, after it became apparent her ability to <em>speak</em> to Altered Items.</p><p>“Emily wanted you to have these.” She slid the stack of folders off her cart to him and he looked positively jovial. He flipped open the files and studied the dates in the corners.</p><p>“These are… They fill in some of our record gaps from 83-86. Hah, the swan boat finally has a home.” He said a few other things in increasing speed she didn’t quite follow, but nodded as if she did. “Doctor Pope really is the best of them.” Langston concluded.</p><p>“Yes. She is.” Jesse said without thought, and then felt she should be embarrassed by the immediacy of her response. Langston didn’t seem to notice. But Polaris sure did, chirping in the back of her cortex.</p><p>“On other matters, I have some rounds for you to make. Protective Studies, there has been some misbehaving over there.” Langston continued.</p><p>Misbehaving was his favorite term for Altered Items doing what they shouldn’t. The fact that they behaved at all should be unsettling, but it had come to intrigue Jesse the way it did Langston. Especially… after her experience with the Merry-Go-Round.</p><p>
  <em>The place in white… the sound of static overwriting itself… the return to herself… different then before…</em>
</p><p>She didn’t dwell on it often, by command more than choice.</p><p>“Which one in particular?” She was pretty sure she already knew.</p><p>“The rubber duck.” <em>Ahh yes.</em></p><p>“More so than usual?” She said, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>“Well obviously the very nature of it is lacking ‘usual.’ And we’ve done what we normally would to pacify it. But it’s…” He flexed his fingers at his side as if missing a word in his vocabulary. “Unsatisfied.” He settled on.</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do for it. Was that all?”</p><p>“And if you see the Director…” Langston looked a little nervous, shifting on the balls of his feet. “Ask him if he’s looked at our new budget proposal?”</p><p>“You know I have no pull in those matters.” Jesse said flatly.</p><p>“Figure, it couldn’t hurt coming from you, ya know?” Langston gestured her way. “You’re his sister after all.”</p><p>As if she needed reminding.</p><p>She hated this topic, and felt a tingle at the base of her neck. Polaris chirped again, as if to clam her, but she knew from enough sessions with Emily that these were the signs she needed to remove herself from the situation. She gave her cart a shove back toward the exit.</p><p>“No promises.” Jesse said over her shoulder, which was as close to affirmation as she’d give.</p><p>He still looked pleased, and gave a quick nod.</p><p>“Thank you Speaker. And let me know if there’s any issue with AI-52.”</p><p>“There won’t be. I’ll take care of the duck <em>again</em>. But we should get a bike lock or something for it.”</p><p>“A bike lock… for an inter dimensional entity. You’ve cracked it.” He added the last bit with his trademark Langston look and she took her exit happily.</p><p>For all the slack she gave him, Langston was alright. Their dynamic was based on mutual gain, when he could have her help his sector or his beloved AI’s.</p><p>But she got something out of this too. Purpose. Information. And the feeling of success for something more than delivering mail and cleaning the floors.</p><p>He had a sticker that said ‘I like altered items more than I like people’ that he’d printed in the central office (after hours of course.) He put it on the bottom of his mug so whenever he took a sip he’d flash anyone nearby his preference for the paranormal inanimate. And honestly, Jesse could get it.</p><p>He’d handed her a sticker of her own once under a stack of mail with a nod and a wink.</p><p>She placed it on the back of the door to her cell. It was a good reminder that people were shit.</p><p>Polaris had hummed as she did and she chuckled.</p><p>“Of course that doesn’t include you.”</p><p>*******</p><p>That afternoon she had time to grab her lunch box and lock herself in the janitors office for some peace and quiet, having missed her lunch hour by literal hours. She sat with her legs propped up on the table, poured some warm coffee from her thermos and unwrapped her sandwich, a slice of turkey with a leaf of lettuce on some stale bread. Gourmet shit right here.</p><p>She slipped an old vhs into the tv by her feet and watched the static kick to life. The picture started as a sunset, panning from up in the sky to the town below. The opening was her favorite part. She couldn’t remember the last time she<em> saw</em> a sunset. The Oldest House had no windows, and she hadn’t been off the grounds since the day she arrived.</p><p>She paused mid-bite as her jaw slowed and tensed and she swallowed a larger chunk than she meant to.</p><p>P6 and P7… brought here after that day… and pitted against each other to create the next Director… Not that either of them had ever wanted it…</p><p>Well, they got what they wanted.</p><p>She took another bite of her sandwich and turned back to the film. The opening involved some other characters and plot threads she’d seen 100 times, but there was another great pan at the third minute where you could see the sunset dipping behind the treeline. She enjoyed the colors and tried to calm herself.</p><p>Emily had given her the video after she mentioned how she used to love watching old movies with her dad.</p><p>One day the doctor had come into their sessions, beaming, and holding a box in her arms. She’d snuck her a box of vhs tapes. The look on Jesse’s face she imagined was as close to dumbfounded joyful as she’d ever get. This was unheard of... unexpected... and all Jesse could think was...</p><p>
  <em>What was she after?</em>
</p><p>Everyone wanted something from her. That was the only reason anyone did anything to, with, or for her.</p><p>But she genuinely seemed to be delighted for her to have them, and had never tried to collect on it. She made some comment about not knowing what she’d like and getting a variety. Honestly whatever the videos were, as long as they weren’t the fucking threshold children they would be more than peachy.</p><p>That was the day she went back to her cell and grabbed a marker. When she closed the door and saw the sticker, her daily reminder, she amended it slightly.</p><p>It now read “I like altered items more than MOST people.”</p><p>Polaris of course, made her comment.</p><p>Jesse said “<em>Shuddupppp</em>.”</p><p>*******</p><p>She’d finally got over to Protective Studies, a few hundred feet and several annoyingly long murmurs and glares pointed her way. She didn’t hope for understanding, just subtly with their eagerly expressed distaste.</p><p>The sector was mostly vacant at this hour. Everyone would be heading out for the day, but she had a few more things to get done. And doing em later helped, less likely to run into people or issues (one in the same.)</p><p>When she got to the duck’s cage he looked the same as always, sitting on the platform, but he usually liked to face his company. It didn’t matter what degree they came in from. He would face it. And blink. The thing blinked. Which was its own brand of crazy that she had no time to investigate.</p><p>Today the duck was facing away, instead looking at the far wall.</p><p>Very unlike him.</p><p>“Hey…” She called out, unsure what she was thinking would happen. “What’s got you all turned around, huh?”</p><p>Silence. Fair.</p><p>She looked next to the cell and saw a small table plant. Isa #0304.</p><p>“You know what’s got it all worked up?” She asked, lowering her voice so only the plant could hear it. Yes she knew how it probably sounded, but it was the truth of what she was doing.</p><p>Isa shook slightly, the stems pointing toward a chair that had been knocked over and the papers on the desk left messy. She sighed.</p><p>“No respect for things, I swear.” She said, straightening up the chair and rearranging the papers.</p><p>The duck liked things in a certain manner. Regularity was very important to the AI’s. If you disturbed their surroundings they would become disturbed.</p><p>She looked up and saw the duck was now in profile.</p><p>“That’s a start.” Jesse mumbled, and Polaris blipped inside her in agreement. “Yeah you’re right, I suppose it’s not pissing honey, or whatever Ahti said earlier.”</p><p>She walked over to the light switch and flicked it off and then back on.</p><p>The duck didn’t move.</p><p>“Hmm… yeah that usually works.” She said, hearing Polaris express her concerns. She walked up to the edge of the enclosure and saw something that shouldn’t be there. A red marker pen.</p><p>Shit. How was she gonna get that out? She didn’t have the clearance to the doors…</p><p>Polaris chimed in.</p><p>“I can’t…” She grit. Teeth strongly pressing against each other at the notion. “You know that P.”</p><p>She was insistent, still highlighting the object with the only way to get it out.</p><p>“You can be a real ass, you know that?” The entity hummed, offendedly. “Or course I don’t mean it.” She sighed. “Ok, ok… I’ll do it. I’ve got you to help me after all… right?”</p><p>Polaris chimed excitedly and she lifted her hand, squatting to the floor. She hadn’t tried to use these powers since… well… since Dylan asked her not to.</p><p>Every now and then, just to see if she still could. But that was always in the cover of her own room. In the open…</p><p>She pushed down the worry, or else this wouldn’t work.</p><p>Jesse focused on the object and the air around her… and she made sure to only aim for the pen. It wouldn’t do to rip chunks of concrete out of the ground… again.</p><p>At first, nothing happened… and then it did. It started to roll as if a gentle breeze was pushing it.</p><p>She felt her heart speed up, as it did whenever she dipped into these powers.</p><p>It was working… it was working… and then it was at the door. She slid two fingers through the grate and lifted it out. She was suddenly breathing heavy, but not from wear, only exhilaration.</p><p>When she looked up the duck was facing her now.</p><p>“Feeling better?” She asked, rising back up to her feet and tossing the pen into her cart. She turned away to leave and then heard a faint… <em>quack.</em></p><p>Startled, she turned back to see the duck was still facing her… but now it was on the floor of the cell… not the platform.</p><p>“What’s up with you huh?” It really was misbehaving… almost like it wanted to tell her something…</p><p>She stared into those slow blinking rubber eyes for what felt like a very long time, before finally flicking the switch down and then up.</p><p>It was back on the podium when the light returned.</p><p>*******</p><p>One of Jesse’s favorite past times was reading the notes people left out and about. She wasn’t the type to dig through files and drawers but if it was out on a desk or a counter she’d flip it open, take a peek, flip it closed.</p><p>No harm done.</p><p>But it did give her a weird chance to connect to all the people and the place that she both hated and treasured. Well, that was too strong a word, but it was the only place she’d gathered any form of memories in. And it wasn’t boring at least. Anyway the notes. Some correspondence about policy violations, shifting bathrooms, case files about Altered Items. She liked those the best.</p><p>There were mundane details, entertaining ones, definitely classified ones she shouldn’t be reading. Suck it board of Directors.</p><p>On that day she was cleaning up her final pass through the offices on the first floor when she found another note in a series she’d been enjoying. Book club. The first two had entertained her to no end, because the readers had clearly read different books. One a story about an infection, some kind of cure they were hunting for. Another a horror story with unnatural forces. She recognized Lopez and Phillip’s names. They seemed nice enough. Once worked for Salvador, the other for Langston.</p><p>This note was the third, but this was the one that peaked her interest the most. From Samson. His was addressed to Penny from book club.</p><p><em>Penny…</em> she racked her brain trying to remember a Penny. She had read through all the names and directories of the Bureau. Even the deceased. But the name Penny… didn’t stir anything.</p><p>His third review was again a totally different take on the book Unless You by J.D. Brooks. Some space invasion, but where the hero dies tragically early in the war.</p><p>Supernatural forces… an alien invasion… an incurable disease…</p><p>The fuck was this book? Jesse had heard of subtext, but this was taking it to the extreme. This was prominent text differences.</p><p>Penny… who the hell was this Penny? And, honestly where the hell was this book? She was getting nervous about it.</p><p>She wandered toward the mail room with the on her mind to drop off today’s batches and fill the pneumatic tubes.</p><p>And she found a note shoved under one of the desks, crumpled up and beside a waste basket.</p><p>She uncurled it unconsciously and felt her heart leap into her throat.</p><p>It was from Penny…</p><p>Penny Bartwell.</p><p>
  <em>Hello avid readers!</em>
</p><p>And the note went on to discuss Bureau book club, logistics, the title “Unless You” by J.D. Brooks.</p><p>But on the top corner… Was the little pink crest of an open book. That symbol she’d seen on one of Emily’s papers earlier…</p><p>
  <em>No… no, fuck.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>No shit. Wait.</em>
</p><p>What was the book that had been on Emily’s desk today?</p><p>
  <em>Fuck fuck fuck.</em>
</p><p>Jesse went sprinting. In her hurry she heard Polaris cry out but didn’t listen. She dig for that power again and dashed. Dashed the way she’d learned to on the astral plane... That Object of Power that she’d soothed and been imprinted upon had given her this. Her brother asked her not to use it. But right now she couldn’t think about that. She needed to cross a long distance. She passed someone in the halls and heard a flutter of papers spurt out of their hands from the force in the air.</p><p>“What the hell?! Lab rat!! <em>What’re you-</em>“</p><p>Honestly fuck that guy, she was only concerned with finding the Doctor.</p><p>Thank god she was in her office, and-</p><p>
  <em>She was reading the book.</em>
</p><p>Jesse knocked the door open, half outta breath, feeling the hinges squeak and skew.</p><p>The good doctor looked up like a cannonball had been shot through the wall, which wasn’t far off.</p><p>She slammed the book forward on reflex and hit the desk, spilling the tea next to her and it splashed over the book.</p><p>“Oh shit- <em>Jesse?</em> What’re you?”</p><p>She jumped onto the desk and squatted so they were eye level and pressed both hands over Emily’s own, closing the book and feeling her pulse quicken at their contact. But the contact didn’t matter right now. Nothing mattered. Except that some cursed book was in the hands of the only person she didn’t think was total shit.</p><p>“Emily…” She panted for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Emily how much have you read of this?”</p><p>“Wh- not much? Just the first few chapters…” Her words were slow and confused. She looked at Jesse’s eyes, her hands, the spill, and back to her eyes, trying to understand.</p><p>“Jesse what’s wrong?”</p><p>“Emily, who gave you the book?”</p><p>“What? Penny did. I don’t understand.”</p><p>“Emily, <em>who</em> is Penny?”</p><p>The doctor’s eyes opened a fraction wider.</p><p>“Who Emily? Have you ever met them before today?”</p><p>“I… I don’t…”</p><p>“What do they look like?” Jesse asked feeling the heebie-jeebies she got around these things.</p><p>“I…” Emily shook her head as if trying to recall a dream after she’d woken. “She’s not real is she?”</p><p>Jesse shook her head.</p><p>“Emily, what is the book about?” Jesse asked.</p><p>“The… the book? Oh, it’s about an archeologist on an expedition.” She smiled a little awkwardly as if not able to decide on a single emotion. “You know when I was little I wanted to be one… discovering distant worlds and uncovering truths.”</p><p>Fitting. An adorable detail she’d like to hear any other time. Not now.</p><p>“Em, I need you to give me the book.” She said back slowly and seriously.</p><p>“The… the book? Are you sure, what could be the harm?” She looked conflicted. Perhaps part of the spell, or her general innate curiosity.</p><p>“Please trust me on this. You can’t see how it ends, ok?” Jesse felt raw all of a sudden. Emotional and confused and overstimulated. But this book… if it was as bad as her gut told her it was… she couldn’t let it take her.</p><p>Emily looked up into her eyes and seemed to be piecing together reality and shedding whatever was grabbing her into the pages.</p><p>Her hands relaxed under Jesse’s palms and transferred the book to her, slowly sliding free from their shared grip.</p><p>Jesse nodded, feeling shaken and lightheaded still as the adrenaline hadn’t quite subsided.</p><p>She wanted to say something, anything of use or importance really. But after blanking she went with-</p><p>“See you Monday.”</p><p>Before turning to let herself off the desk, and out of the office, trying to close the door with a shaky hand, and realizing it no longer sat in its frame. She’d have to fix that later.</p><p>*******</p><p>She ended up walking down the deep corridors of the building for sometime, lost in thought, with the book pressed to her chest. There were so many swirling conversations in her head, and Polaris was, mercifully, silent.</p><p>Then she saw the person she hadn’t been looking for, but was still somewhat relieved to see. Maybe he could help.</p><p>“Dylan.” She called out. He stopped in his tracks and turned. Hand in his waistcoat pocket, mimicking the way all the men in suits walked to look important.</p><p>“Hey, what’s up sis?” He asked, his tone reflecting the way they only spoke around themselves. He didn’t normally call her Jesse anymore, which hurt in its own way, but she’d take sis.</p><p>“Does… someone named Penny Bartwell work on this floor?” She tried slowly, coming a few steps closer.</p><p>“Bartwell?” Dylan tilted his head back in thought and scrunched his chin just a little. “No, not in this sector. In fact, I don’t know that name in the Bureau at all.”</p><p>“Thought so.” Said Jesse, clutching the book closer to her chest. “Thanks, that’s all I needed to know. This book definitely belongs in the Panopticon then.”</p><p>“Book? What kinda book?” Dylan asked, noticing it for the first time.</p><p>“I don’t know how to describe it, but I know it doesn’t belong here.” Jesse said, thinking of the notes she’d read. They all spoke of some invasion… something coming… should she tell him?</p><p>She walked closer to him, worrying her brow, and held it out between them. She wanted him to be a part of this… to know what she did for them all. To see some value. She flipped the cover open to the first page…</p><p>“Dylan… what do you see?” She asked him, staring at the first page intently.</p><p>Dylan stepped closer and craned his neck slightly to get a better angle on it.</p><p>“Nothing…” He said, arching an eyebrow. “It’s blank.” He reached forward and slid his finger through a random page and let them slide free, flipping through a chunk of pages. “They’re all blank.”</p><p>The nerve in Jesse’s neck tensed and she stared at each page as they fell.</p><p>“That’s what I see too…” She said, feeling a warmth up her back.</p><p>“A blank book… needs to go to the Panopticon?” Dylan quirked a brow at her now. And she was losing him. “Whatever you say P7… just make it back to your cell and take it in the morning. It’s lights out in 10.”</p><p>“Yes Director.” She said, feeling that warmth in her body turn to a chill. She turned swiftly and headed for her cell. There were few days she’d listen to his words without sass or a direct eye roll behind his back, or even fewer days where she’d actually go to the cell when pretending to.</p><p>But today she went, closed the doors, and sat with her back pressed against it. 8 minutes to spare to light out. She looked at the cover, and shakily flipped to the first page. Heart beating in her throat.</p><p>She’d lied to Dylan. The book wasn’t blank for her.</p><p>She understood why it was for him… they’d been plucked from death, time, and any other semblance of connection to a narrative. For her it should be too.</p><p>But right there on the cover page, and she didn’t dare go further, was a simple thing. A page that was mostly white with a single inverted black triangle.</p><p>Right in the middle of the page.</p><p>The symbol of the Board.</p><p>And under it…</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>&lt;Hello Rightful/ Alternate/ REDACTED Director&gt;</strong>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Woo! Alright one down. Fuck yeah. I was really pumped about the book club theories (if you dont know the video omg i’ll link it it’s so freaking rad) and the plants. The talking to plants mission was one of my favorite things and you will see me use it regularly 😂</p><p>See ya’ll next time! This is just the start DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.</p><p>Book Club Video<br/>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbD3jmUzmNo</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Janitor’s Assistant</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>After the book club and Jesse exposing her ‘otherness’ she has ended up on Dylan’s bad side.</p><p>She tries to come up with a way to get back on his good side. A way that inadvertently leads down to Underhill’s lab.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Ayyyyy Chapter 2! So this was not supposed to be this long, but at least we wrote most of it in one caffeine induced day. Hopefully you enjoy! I really love some of the details we got to work in, and am hopefully setting up some big moves!</p><p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFeUO8UQ0Gs</p><p>Also this is the song Jesse listen’s to at the start! Enjoy :D</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nights more often than not found Jesse restless. This one was no exception. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling in her assigned cell, playing with the edge of her sleeves. The grey padded sweater was emblazoned P7 over the corner of her chest, forever marking her as property of this place. Less anyone, including her, forget.</p><p>She tapped her fingers on her thigh in thought for what she assumed had been hours. Time was always funny when it came to the Oldest House. Extra-funny at night. And when sleep alluded her the time between felt unending. She’d counted sheep, a trick Ahti recommended, up to 17,789 and gave up before hitting 18k. There was too much on her mind. The book… The Board… The message… It was stirring her in the wrong direction of rest, so she decided… it wouldn’t hurt anyone to break a rule. If only for a brief respite from the voices in her brain.</p><p>She swung her legs off the cot, welcomed the cold of the tile floor on her bare feet, and took the two steps to the bolted door. She hesitated for a moment, then held her hand up slowly and focused on the other side of the lock, imagining it turning in her mind. As if the tip were suddenly magnetized to the center of her palm. She felt the vibrations in the back of her eyes, the growing hum of blood pounding, and then heard a click.</p><p>When she reached for the handle it turned easily, and she quickly grabbed for the hidden item inside her pillowcase before letting herself out into the unlit halls. There was a locked room with her name on it.</p><p>*******</p><p>Sneaking around the Oldest House was nothing new to her. Jesse could probably roam its levels with her eyes closed and still know which angles to take to avoid detection. Clutched in her hand, an iPod. Nothing fancy. It was an old model with a small, cracked screen. Large dial in the body to scroll through its menus. Thick, chipped plastic. But it felt like the only thing that was hers, because it was the only thing not given by the people in charge.</p><p>She’d found it in the lost and found bin after tidying up one day and just stared. It was odd for something like that to end up here. It must’ve been confiscated… who would just lose something like that? Who would put it here was an even bigger question? She’d pushed the bin back in its place and thought about it for the next 24 hours.</p><p>When she went back the next time her rounds took her to that room she eyed the bin but didn’t touch it. Afraid it was still there. Afraid it was gone.</p><p>She made a note in her head. 30 days. If it was still there after 30 days, she’d take it…</p><p>On the 30th day when she checked not only was it still there, but next to it now, what she was sure hadn’t been before, a charging cable and headphones. As if they had been conjured for her. As if the house, or some janitor that probably knew her obsession, had manifested them.</p><p>She knew it was wrong. She’d be punished for it. It was something she absolutely should not have… but she wanted it for herself. She wanted <em>something</em> for herself. So… she’d taken it.</p><p>And tonight she wanted to take something again. Time. Just a little bit.</p><p>So she took a late night trip out to one of the labs hidden on the ground floor of Central Research. She’d found it by accident the first time. It looked like it should have been walled off like the other numbered and barred labs lining the hall. (Labs that made her wonder about the fates of P1-5. No one <em>started</em> counting at 6, right?)</p><p>But it was a room... a singular room 20 feet underground at the end of an exceptionally out of the way and uninviting hallway.</p><p>The room itself though was a a strange dichotomy. It would be considered domestic, charming even, if it were any place else. Warm lighting versus the fluorescent headache in the bulk of the building. Retro wallpaper of reds and oranges. A plush chair, dark cushions of leather. And on the far wall, an edge to edge speaker.</p><p>Like massive.</p><p>The lab right outside the space let her know that it was used for less than pleasant purposes. Scratch marks faded on the doors, ruts dug into the tiled ground. She could fill in some blanks if she let herself. Though she rarely did. Her current position was meant to ‘pacify’ the past, and she was perfectly content leaving it that way. Nothing for her there.</p><p>But like many other obstacles in the Oldest House, she had found a way to make this space work for her.</p><p>She went to the control panel and pulled out the rig she’d established. Hidden inside an old modem. Not that anyone ever checked in here, but better to be safe. And the extra security measures made her feel like a right old hoodlum.</p><p>Polaris chirped sleepily and Jesse chuckled.</p><p>“Calm down, I figured out the wiring minus all electrocution.” There may have been numerous previous attempts that ended in shocked and/or burned fingers. “Got any requests?”</p><p>The entity buzzed <em>the usual</em> before drifting away. Jesse nodded with a smile.</p><p>“Coming right up.” She smiled as she tilted the cables just so, tightened the strand of tape around the port and hit play, letting herself into the room and instantly slouching into the chair. It was probably the most comfortable chair she’d ever sat in, which given its surroundings seemed such a waste.</p><p>The song started up on the wall to wall speakers and she leaned further back in the chair.</p><p>
  <em>“I am...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Out of...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ordinary.”</em>
</p><p>There were subtle synth beats in between the words like someone plucking a harp with a toothbrush. She liked this one.</p><p>The lyrics repeated.</p><p>
  <em>“I am...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Out of...</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ordinary.”</em>
</p><p>Then the beat kicked in and the speaker came to life. It vibrated visually and in her bones. And she smiled at the double meaning to the song. She was out alright. Never going back... not that there was anything to go back to. Like it or not this was the way it was. But, like everything else, she’d make it work for her.</p><p>*******</p><p>Jesse brought Langston the book first thing in the morning. He still had a mug of oolong on his desk and blinked a few extra times trying to wake up. She made him put it in a cell and watch it go there and told him it was not meant to be read. And after he side-eyed it curiously, she put on her sternest scolding voice and said <em>Langston, I’m serious.</em> And he tightened up immediately as if he’d been caught staring at a porno mag by his mom.</p><p>Now she was moving through the lower level of Central Research, trying to blend in and trying harder to not replay the message in the book.</p><p>The symbol of the board... <em>the Rightful Director?</em> She wished she’d been able to convince Dylan that it was important. She wished she’d gotten through to him.</p><p>And as if thinking of him had conjured the man in question, she saw him walking toward her across the foyer. Her first instinct was that she was happy to see him. But then she noticed his energy. He was not happy to see her.</p><p>He came and stopped before her and she halted in her cleaning. He frowned something deep and pained and she was genuinely concerned upon seeing him like this.</p><p>“P7...” He said, balling and unballing his fists at his side. “Why have you disobeyed me?”</p><p>It sucked that her first thought was wondering which time he was referring to. She stared with continued silence, as to not incriminate herself further.</p><p>“You... you were seen in the halls yesterday... using your... otherness.”</p><p><em>Otherness</em>. The term deemed to anything she did that would in another light be considered exemplary. But if it made Jesse the Janitor look strong, it unintentionally made Dylan the Director look weak. And the Bureau was all about appearances.</p><p>“I… needed to stop something bad from happening.” Jesse said, remembering her dash to Emily’s office. Actually not really remembering it. She had a way of deflecting not absorbing moments like that. Moments where the outcome is the only detail important.</p><p>“Remember the book I showed you?” She tried, quietly hoping it would be enough to avoid his ire. She truly hated when she was on her brother’s bad side.</p><p>“You <em>compromised</em> our integrity to recover a blank book?” He said, voice still artificial and practiced. But with genuine anger mounting.</p><p>“It’s a dangerous item.” Jesse insisted. “I gave it to Langston this morning and he is already running tests-“</p><p>“<em>THIS</em> is not about an item or Langston or tests. It is about <em>you</em>.” He said, slight spittle on the ends of his words. “Do you think me a fool?”</p><p>Lousy question. Polaris chirped her own opinion on the matter.</p><p>“I know about the late night escapades. You trip the wire every time.”</p><p><em>Shit. </em>Well that was a blow to her ego as well as alarming.</p><p>“Are you... are you plotting against me?” He asked, lowering his voice, and there was for a brief moment of pain there. Something that was so like her little brother all those years ago, needing reassurance after your parents disappeared that he wasn’t alone. That he had you. And it made her chest feel like it was breaking in two.</p><p>“Dylan, of course not. <em>Never</em>.” She said, assuring as she could be. She felt the weight of her secret in her pocket. Less than 2 ounces all together.</p><p>“Then <em>why</em>? Why this secrecy? Why this book? Why this defilement of my board and my trust?” Again he spoke in that way that wasn’t ‘their’s.’ Wasn’t someone trying to be a thing they’re not. Just a boy. In a mans suit. With a load on his shoulders far too great.</p><p><em>Should she tell him?</em> She slipped her hand in her pocket and felt impulse taking over. He was her confidant and brother above all else… maybe this time she could get him to understand.</p><p>“It’s only this Dill.” She said, pulling the music box free. She didn’t know what she expected. Perhaps he’d be miffed, but she would regain his trust. He’d known she always liked music. Even when they were little she’d blast her speaker as loud as it would go in their side by side rooms and he’d inadvertently been a hostage to many of her karaoke sessions. </p><p>What she got instead was a frown so severe it hurt her heart. He reached out and grabbed the device from her hand then turned and threw it to the ground.</p><p>His trigger hand coming out a second later with OOP-1, commonly called the Service Weapon, and shooting three bullets (which was gratuitous) into the small device. All the passerby’s on their way to morning meetings halted mid-stride and their eyes fell on her, which really sucked. Ahti had told her before that eyes carried energy. That was why you could always ‘feel’ when someone was watching you. And right now she felt a lot as she could do nothing but stand there, fighting her ‘unconstructive emotions’ as Trench would call them. That was almost worse than realizing she’d lost the iPod, and with it… her trust from her brother.</p><p>“Jesse... how could you?” He said, teeth grit. Nice to know he could still use her name when he wanted to hurt her.</p><p>“We reject modern technology!” He bellowed, changing his tune and pointing dramatically to the bulletin board where those red poster often hung. Unfortunately he pointed to the ones that said DONT EAT THE MOLD, so it lost some of its effect.</p><p>She was stunned. She instantly mourned the loss of it, the one solace she’d thought to trust him with... he had destroyed.</p><p>“I’m sorry Director.” She said through strained teeth, fists clenched, innards bubbling over “I didn’t see any harm.”</p><p>“Then you are blind.” He scowled deeper. “I had no idea the levels your dissent had reached.” And with that he turned and left her, dress shoes echoing as they walked away.</p><p>She took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, she didn’t know what to do. She’d been embarrassed, hurt, and worse so, misunderstood. That last one was most of her life but by Dylan… had she truly lost him at this point? Someone appeared in her peripherals, as if out of thin air.</p><p>“I’ll take the rest of this floor.” Ahti said. “You go take a walk.” If she’d thought to say anything she couldn’t, all she did was try to keep breathing. The way Emily had taught her in their sessions. “Do not worry of him. Some can not see the forest from the trees.”</p><p>There was a gruff pat on her shoulder, something friendly from Ahti that meant a lot in that moment. He knew as well as she did that if she stayed it was a few ticks before she’d lose all composure. And the last time that happened...</p><p>She swallowed whatever feelings she felt rising and walked automatically away. No destination in mind. Just one foot in front of the other and away from here.</p><p>*******</p><p>Some time had passed she assumed, for the next thing she knew she was at the quarry. A place she did not have the clearance for, but knew the relative importance and security of. Somewhere she definitely wouldn’t have picked to be.</p><p>When things were tense she’d feel this... pulsing. Like a black ink mixing with red liquid, glowing from inside her, spilling between two plates of glass and pushing back and forth over and over... and she’d hone to it. Following its senseless patterns as the liquids matched density and molecules and spread across each other, both trying to consume the other...</p><p>Then she’d come to in a part of the building she couldn’t recall. No trail of breadcrumbs left behind to follow.</p><p>“Shit...” Jesse mumbled to herself. There was a stone on the floor and she kicked it, watching it skip across the until it bumped against a shoe. A pair of shoes, walking toward her. Black dress shoes.</p><p>Trench. The Director. Head Director at least, with Dylan interning under his wing. He was probably the person that made Jesse’s butthole clench the most.</p><p>But he seemed unaware that she was even there. Which, realistically had been his default since Dylan was chosen, but this seemed extreme.</p><p>He was staring ahead, mumbling to himself, a finger pressed on the side of his head. He walked directly up to Jesse with his short strides and she literally had to step out of his way while he kept on in his path.</p><p>He didn’t turn around after he’d passed her and she felt almost annoyed that even the man that had taken her proceeded to act like she was a stain on the floor. But the majority of her was relieved.</p><p>“HEY.” And there went that. Jesse saw Helen Marshall coming around the hall, adjacent to where Trench had come from. “What’re you doing in this sector?”</p><p>She always walked around with her aviator style coat, and her arms looking like they were missing a rifle.</p><p>“Sorry, I was just… looking for anything that needs cleaning.” Wow. The lamest thing ever spoken.</p><p>“Where’s your cart?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>And Jesse wished she could drink bleach. If she had any.</p><p>“Uh. Not with me. This is more like a… scouting report.” She couldn’t even sound convincing in her head. She was sure the Head of Operations was more than aware of the poor excuse of an alibi and was already on to imaging different ways to incapacitate her. It wouldn’t take much after the day she’d had. Maybe a tap on the shoulder.</p><p>“Just trying to help.” She said softly, lowering her head. <em>Why couldn’t they see that? Why couldn’t Dylan see that?</em></p><p>Marshall stopped a few steps in front of her and leaned against the hall, assessing the janitor.</p><p>“We don’t need any help in restricted sectors.” She said stern. And then almost as a throw away, “Well, besides Underhill.”</p><p>Jesse perked up. Everyone in the bureau knew about the worst kept pandemic. The signs on the ground floor were hardly encouraging about their progress with it. She’d asked Ahti once why they couldn’t help. Mold seemed right up their alley. He had hummed his thoughtful way.</p><p>“There would be work for an axe before a broom, but this is something they will have to learn by way of the heel.” And that had been the whole conversation on the matter. Up til now.</p><p>“Underhill… in Research?”</p><p>“Yeah, we sent another group down there at the start to of the week and I’m getting sick of losing my agents to whatever the hell is happening at that threshold.” Marshall shook her head, somewhere else entirely now.</p><p>“Sounds like a real nightmare.” Jesse nodded, trying to make small talk. Hating it. Small talk was a pointless art she’d never mastered. Like ventriloquism. Or taxidermy.</p><p>Marshall merely turned her eyes back to her with no words for a minute. Like a literal minute. If she’d been counting she could have imagined a full 60 seconds of awful, blatant silence. Another hater of small talk.</p><p>“Well it’s surely one of the Bureau’s biggest headaches at the moment. Among <em>all </em>the other ones. Bet the Director’s will be more than pleased when someone makes it disappear.”</p><p>And there was something about the wording… something in that moment… Where Jesse got a really foolish idea. A truly preposterous one. Could be brilliant. Could be suicide. Could be a herbilogical shit show.</p><p>Polaris began spinning in the back of her mind, sounding off alarms, already seeing where her train of thought was leading.</p><p><em>Let’s at least take a</em> look…</p><p>*******</p><p>Jesse found herself at the base of Central Research, cart recovered, and standing on the edge of a line of wet floor signs. Definitely entering another restricted area. Polaris chirped once more, trying to set her on a better path, but already knowing they were going on this weird ass odyssey into an infested basement.</p><p>“I know, I know, but we gotta do this.” She just couldn’t get the image of Dylan’s scowl out of her head. “We probably can’t solve the whole thing, but… I don’t know, let’s at least take a look?” She sounded more desperate than she’d meant to. She just <em>wanted</em> it to be different. So people didn’t push past her in the hall, or see her being scolded for her <em>otherness.</em></p><p>
  <em>The carousel horse… the brass compass… the marks on her back… the iPod…</em>
</p><p>She wiped them away as if with a mental mop. This really wasn’t the time. There never was a time for this. Supposedly her sessions with Emily were really the times to strip away her mental barricades, but the idea of showing her the dark parts that went bump in the night, and every now and then during the day… it made her want to jump out of a window. Not that the Oldest House had any.</p><p>For now she was focused on Mold Patrol, and seeing if she could do something, any little thing, to help the Bureau… and by extension… her brother.</p><p>She stepped toward the literal dark corner of Central Research, where the black stalks had begun to encroach.</p><p>Now Jesse was no stranger to mold. She had cleaned up many in her day. Mostly from the employee breakroom. People did not remember to take their lunches home. It was one of the biggest banes of her rounds, disinfecting the fridge. So as she neared she was surprised there were none of the telltale signs. The smell for one... while there were a variety of scents, they were all versions of repulsive. It was dying molecules being feasted on, it was supposed to smell bad. But this smelled... fragrant?</p><p>Something was vey wrong.</p><p>The don’t eat signs made a little more sense, whereas before they had baffled her. Context was important.</p><p>She pushed her cart through and watched the roots move softly under the wheels. She clicked the button to summon the lift and listened to it creak alive.</p><p>
  <em>Last chance to turn back...</em>
</p><p>Polaris pinged but she mentally brushed it off. Curiosity was starting to meld with her sense of duty. She would get to the literal bottom of this. The lift appeared before her and she wheeled her cart onto the platform and hit the button to descend. Her stomach grumbled as she started moving. She should have had lunch.</p><p><em>Hmm... think a bite would kill us?</em> She internally asked Polaris, who vehemently spun in protest.</p><p>“Relax relax, im kidding.” Mostly. It <em>did</em> smell pretty good. Hard to describe. Maybe just a nibble...</p><p>Probably not. But maybe...</p><p>*******</p><p>The lift came to a stop with a slight rattle and she rolled onto the ground level to see-</p><p>“Holy shit” she said aloud to the narrow chamber, covered in the black, green, and blue parasites. Like covered.</p><p>In the open space she saw a Control Point had been established. Or… at least attempted. The lines were obscured, and the dish was snapped in half.</p><p>Control Points were interesting to say the least... she’d learned that they were a way of keeping the building stable. Relieving some of the pressure behind it, like breathing holes in the lid of a jar with a frog inside. She supposed they were the frog in this analogy.</p><p>But that was the extent of her knowledge. The Bureau putting one here was telling. Some serious shit was going down.</p><p>She pushed her cart forward, tepidly. Unsure what she was expecting but sure it was bad.</p><p>“Knock knock?” She called out, hearing her lame ass greeting echo off the walls back to her.</p><p><em>Nobody home? </em>Or she still wasn’t at the front door.</p><p>She started her trek, giving her cart a push and moving deeper into the fungi factory. She crossed through one hall, dark and dim, then another. The area had all the telltale signs of a bad shift. Probably the attempt at the Control Point. But blocks of wall and floor were jutting out and receding out like one of those puzzle cubes she’d remembered as a kid.</p><p>Then up ahead… there was something. It looked like a storage unit?</p><p>“Hey, thresholds not safe.” She heard a voice call out to her. She looked ahead and saw another person, two actually, waving to get her attention.</p><p>“Yeah, so I hear. Uh, you guys need any help?” She came closer with her cart and saw there were two Rangers, decked in gear and standing before the small cargo hold she realized was a sort of mobile lab. It had all the plugins and railings of the other ones she’d seen the Bureau use.</p><p>“Uh, not sure what help the Janitorial staff will be, but if you want you can check with Underhill.” The second Ranger spoke with a shrug. Worth a shot.</p><p>“Fair enough. Is Doctor Underhill in?”</p><p>“In-sane for mold? Yeah. Big time.”</p><p>“Ha! Up top.” The two Rangers high-fived. Great. This was who was dealing with the fate of the Bureau.</p><p>“So she <em>is</em> in, or…” Jesse said.</p><p>A moment later and another high five from the guards and she was tapping on the lab door.</p><p>“Uh hello?” She pushed the door open with a hand. “Housekeeping?” She said lamely, internally making herself smirk.</p><p>“I should think the sanitation department is horribly out of their league in this situation.” She heard a haughty, British accent laced with displeasure from the back corner of the lab.</p><p>“Oh… thought we might actually be the most qualified.” She said, coming into the lab and awkwardly pulling her cart in before letting the door click shut.</p><p>A woman with a tight dark bun and equally tight expression walked back from the back corner of shelves to lay out several more files on the table, already covered in several hundred others.</p><p>“Hardly. As I have no hesitance to tell you, I don’t think this fungus is a fungus at all. Rather a combination of otherworldly matters, fighting for dominance in our own, and one succeeding while inheriting elements of the other. Now I think you’d agree your club soda or vinegar or array of scrubbing bubbles would fail to be very effective, hmm?” She said all this at a breakneck pace while laying out and marking up the documents before her.</p><p>Jesse merely blinked.</p><p>“So I’ll ask you again, (though Jesse was sure she hadn’t asked her anything yet) why are you here?” She said the last bit with such emphasis and spacing between the words she was sure it was meant as a dismissal or slight, and Jesse’s mind fired off a response before she thought better of it.</p><p>“Marshall said you needed help.”</p><p>Doctor Underhill blinked offendedly, and then her expression morphed from surprised to absolutely abhorrent.</p><p>“She <em>what</em>? Oh that’s rich coming from her.” Underhill practically spat. “Just because another group of Rangers haven’t returned, she thinks- <em>OOUH!</em> That woman really has some nerve.”</p><p>Maybe that was the wrong thing to say… but the attention was turned off her for the moment.</p><p>“Well I should’ve known she’d try to undermine me. I’ll have no part in this. You will leave at once. I will not be taking any hand-outs. Whatever she’s plotting to swoop in and save the day- <em>wait</em>.” Underhill paused one inner monologue for another. “Unless she is trying to use this to say I refused resources she sent me… <em>oh</em> that would be just like her. Fine. <em>So be it</em>.” Then Underhill straightened up and turned to her, taking a deep breath.</p><p>“If you will be staying to ‘help’ then please make yourself of use.” She gestured behind Jesse. “I’d suggest putting on one of those suits, your current attire is rather… pedestrian for something of this magnitude.”</p><p>Jesse nodded and grabbed a hazmat from the hooks behind her.</p><p>“You’ll need to take off your trousers and top to avoid overheating down there. Underwear stays on. And for heavens sake, ditch the cart. This is not a job for a mop.”</p><p>She really seemed to enjoy giving Jesse orders. She looked around the room for a spot to change.</p><p>“Do hurry. We haven’t all day.” Jesse’s bewilderment must’ve shown, for Underhill was immediately ticking her tongue in annoyance as if she was wasting precious seconds. “Honestly, we’re both girls, just hurry and take the slacks off before I send you into those spore fields in your knickers.”</p><p>*******</p><p>Now in the hazmat suit Jesse was here. In the sporezone. Awesome...</p><p>Polaris chirped an<em> I told you so</em>, which was very unhelpful, and Jesse trudged on further into the basement shaking her head.</p><p>“Let’s just get this sample for Doctor Underhill and get out of here, ok?” Jesse bargained back, already feeling the mugginess from the air down here sticking to her skin through the thick containment suit.</p><p>This room was massive, traveling much higher and much lower than the level Jesse currently stood. There was scaffolding locked in places of the large cavern against the walls, leading up and down. Hard to believe a place like this existed here… in the sub-levels of the Oldest House.</p><p>
  <em>Where do we even start?</em>
</p><p>*******</p><p><em>Are we done yet?</em> Polaris chirped some hours later as Jesse was standing on a rickety table as leverage to pull herself up another ledge, with the same energy as a kid climbing out of a pool. She swore under her breath.</p><p>“We still don’t have the sample. She said there was supposed to be one by a toilet? Which, ew, but I haven’t found any plumbing so we’re stuck til we do.” She flicked her flashlight off her belt down the hall and peered farther into the deepness of fungus-imposters coating the edges. It might be easier to see if the hood she had on hadn’t fogged up hours ago on this unproductive journey. All that Jesse had successfully determined was that some of the mold glowed pink when you neared it, and she figured that was a bad sign. Otherwise not much to show for her efforts.</p><p>Polaris chirped cautiously once more, and Jesse frowned.</p><p>“I know! Ok? I know we don’t have to do this, but <em>we’re doing it</em>. Sorry you’re stuck tagging along, but if you wanna sprout some legs and walk off, be my guest. Otherwise, can we quit with the backseat driving?” She said with more ire than she felt for the being. She was just exasperated and overwhelmed as she tried to work out what exactly she was hoping to accomplish down here.</p><p>Polaris was right to be concerned. She’d wandered them both into potential plant-like hell with as scarce a reason as you could create as her guiding star. But she was… desperate? Was this desperation?</p><p>An unexpected sound came from around the corner, deeper into the alcove. She perked. <em>The hell was that?</em> Maybe some of the other Rangers that had been dispatched? She had found it strange that she hadn’t run into any of them, but had chalked it up to the vastness of this area. Maybe they were finally about to cross paths?</p><p>She flashed her light ahead and almost called out, but the words died in her throat as she found the source of the sound to be… well, shit she really wasn’t sure what she was looking at.</p><p>Other than that it was awful.</p><p>The form ahead of her looked human-ish, at least in size and constitution but… they were made completely of the mold. And hunched over… as if…<em> eating?</em> Eating ravenously of the ground as if it were fine steak.</p><p>Jesse tried to swallow, but couldn’t. She tried to speak but didn’t. Tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t.</p><p>Her flashlight just shone on the nearest of the three she could see and she was staring. The creature seemed to notice the light, and paused in its insatiableness to turn its head to her. There were no eyes, but indents where they should be, almost molded into the loam of the head. The thing rose shakily. There was no grace to its movements, but it was almost haunting how it seemed to slide closer with its upper body remaining still.</p><p>
  <em>Shit on a stick.</em>
</p><p>Jesse felt her adrenaline spike, felt her body change at the chemological level. Like it did during her trials all those years ago… And then it happened.</p><p>On instinct she reached out her hand. There was a kind of humming in the air, some distance away… but quickly nearing. Her eyes focused on one of the balls of glowing proximity pink postulates and summoned it, as if magnetizing to the path of her palm.</p><p>She felt that power, that same <em>otherness</em> that she had been plagued with, ripping through her in waves that made her muscles vibrate. She darted her eyes to the mold man, and shifted her palm as if to throw it at him. It collided with his backside and burst into a confetti of fungus and sinew and Jesse was thrown back from the pressure.</p><p>Her arms went up to shield her face, her legs were no longer beneath her, and her whole self was expelled from the hall, as she went soaring back over the ledge she’d climbed, down into the table, and snapping it on impact.</p><p>Then kept going. She broke through the floor beneath it and fell further yet.</p><p>It turned out there was far for her to go. She rebounded off of different outcrops in the narrow shaft she’d been blown through, felt her back hit here, her thigh hit there, her shoulder on a particularly painful one, and then light filled her senses again and she was plummeting into a much larger open cavern.</p><p>She tried to right herself, turned her body, and pulled again. She remembered the compass. That feeling when she’d first found it and it her… The mark it left. The power that came with.</p><p><em>Focus Jesse, focus</em>. Her eyes locked into the cavern wall and she held out her hand once more. And she let herself be the magnet this time. It worked. Her body honed to the wall with a sharp turn and she collided with more force than was good. Her hand cratered into the wall like glue and nearly pulled her arm out of its socket.</p><p>But then she wasn’t falling. She was panting as she dangled from a spot on the wall that she was stuck like flypaper to.</p><p>All her nerves still felt like they were dialed to 11. This was crazy. Absolutely bat-shit crazy. But it worked, and for a moment she wasn’t going to be smashed like an Egg’s Benedict at the bottom of a mystery mold cave. So she laughed. She didn’t know what else to do.</p><p>Relief surged in her and she thought about getting down and slowly her palm un-latched and she slid down the wall until there was something beneath her feet once more.</p><p>“That was crazy, huh P?” But the entity was quiet from that side of her brain. <em>Figures.</em></p><p>She looked toward the center of the room trying to get her bearings, and saw what looked like… a massive oyster shell? With a plant bud literally the size of her growing in the middle of it. Weird.</p><p>This area had a lot of light, natural or otherwise, given the depth it was. There were some raised areas of rock randomly centered around the middle flower thing. It was kind of… pretty. It looked like any other plant. Scratch that, a massive and otherworldly one sure, but a plant nonetheless. Jesse was good with plants. Tossing away Underhill’s warning, she took a few steps closer to it.</p><p>“Hey there, I uh… I like your bud.” She called to it. “Maybe we could be Bud-dies, huh?” She called out again, chuckling internally. The plant shifted slightly, almost as if a breeze had blown it, though no such breeze existed in the Oldest House. Maybe this was a form of greeting?</p><p>Then it opened. The petals, violently pulling apart to reveal a glowing blue center that turned to look at her.</p><p>“Oh shit.”</p><p>Then it erupted with a shriek, sprouting up from the ground, revealing its true form. Two tendrils thicker than tree trunks sprouted from the center around it, kicking up dust and debris, and Jesse dashed back, digging into her otherness with no hesitation.</p><p>“Nope. Nope. Not pretty. Evil. Got it.” Whatever this ‘plant’ was it was bad news. It was more than likely the source based on the shrine it had created for itself. <em>Swell.</em></p><p>She ducked around the corner of one of the rock formations and peered back at this Mold-1. It was now the height of the entire cavern and writhing. She must’ve pissed it off, cause it turned to her again and lashed one of its tendrils with surprising speed for something of its size.</p><p>The impact smashed a side of the hazmat helmet she’d worn, and she quickly pulled it off to avoid the glass, tossing it to the side.</p><p>She smelled that sickly sweet from before, but nothing could make her want to eat it now, given this bitch of a weed’s beef.</p><p>“Alright, time to play exterminator.” Jesse mumbled before dashing once more with her enhanced speed to move from the cover she had to the large bank ahead of her. She saw some of the pink orbs growing behind it and thought maybe she could replicate the accidental technique she’d learned earlier.</p><p>She waited for it to whip it’s ugly head around and pulled with her focus on one of the orbs from the wall. Trying to overlap it’s path and cause a collision. But the plant swayed to the side, quickly, allowing it passage through and it instead collided with the bank she hid behind, creating a massive cacophony that echoed around the space. Her ears were ringing as she covered her head from the debris she’d created.</p><p>Jesse opened her eyes in time to see the tendrils peeking around the corner of the remains coverage and she dashed again as it wound to crash down into the point she’d been standing.</p><p>Shit. It was fast. She needed to come up with something. She could literally only run, not hide. Out in the open she saw the eye again and it vibrated with a white light around it, crying out in its monstrous way as white balls of light fell off of it, then cracked in the air as they honed in toward her.</p><p>“It can <em>do</em> that?” She said to no one in particular as she dashed again to avoid it, hearing it hit the ground behind her. She focused on the wall of cover she saw as destination and outreached her arm again, being pulled toward it with her magnetic power.</p><p>At least she had one more parlor trick to try and keep ahead of the damned dandelion. She tried to catch her breath as she crouched behind cover. Then she saw it in her eyeline, Polaris was spinning. That echo of her celestial accomplice guiding her, right to the base of Mold-1.</p><p><em>Touch it.</em> She commanded. And Jesse didn’t question. The real wonder was how to get there with the snapping tendrils, the rocket spores, and about 50 yards of open space between them.</p><p><em>Get creative.</em> Polaris added, and Jesse smirked. Definitely. They could do this together. The tendril came whipping down from above and Jesse wound up her right hand and wailed on it, smashing it away with brute force, built from her connection to an otherworldly host. Her strength had scared her for a long time. She was strong enough to take a person out in a single hit, and learning that had come with the cost of actually executing it. She had never forgotten that day they took the Agent away on a stretcher. They looked so proud, while she only felt numb…</p><p>She shook her head as she felt the residual strain in her hand from the attack. Not the time. She dashed away and magnetized to the opposite side of the wall. Not going for her target yet. She had an idea, and decided to dig deep to execute it.</p><p>She laid her hand on various boulders she passed, slapped the wall and pushed off as the tendrils came. Dashed to the far-side and laid her hand on the glowing pink pods that started to hum and rupture before pulling herself away to safety. She was panting slightly. Definitely a cardio heavy activity staying alive down here. Now for the main event.</p><p><em>Ready?</em> She asked Polaris who glowed inside of her with encouragement, and she sprinted. Waiting. Pumping arms at her side, hating the restrictiveness of the hazmat suit, and praying to whatever forces got her this far in life. As the spores shot out at her, she magnetized a boulder to her hand and held it up as coverage, letting it explode and take most of the damage, only knocked slightly off balance, and channeling that energy forward. Then as a tendril came snapping at her she evaded once to the side then twice back toward center as the other came out. Then she was ten-feet away.</p><p>She just needed to land a palm on it. She could do this. And then she felt it. The wind before the impact. The moment the tendril was going to hit and she blinked as she made a stupid, spur of the moment decision instead.</p><p>As the tendril hit her and swept her off her feet she held out both hands and stuck herself to it, still absorbing the blow, feeling some ribs crack from the torque of it, but holding on for dear life.</p><p>“<em>Ack!</em>” She grunted as she was swept up into the air, but her palms wouldn’t let go. She had made herself the positive to the negative, and this thing wasn’t losing her that easily. She spat a wad of blood and held on imaging this is what a rodeo was like, and hoping she could hold on long enough.</p><p>The creature seemed equally surprised and tried to find her off but couldn’t. It snapped its tendril back and forth and she worried her head would fly off in a different direction than the rest of her body. Mold-1 turned it’s eye toward her, with what looked almost like a curiousness before glowing white again and she saw it readying the spores. But she could take her shot first. She released her magnetic grip, bent her knees under her and dashed up toward the eye with all her strengh, slapping a hand against it and watching it recoil before the projectiles it had prepared all burst at once around her.</p><p>The pain was unexpectedly sharp. She’d felt pain before, that wasn’t new, but these little bastards packed a punch at close range.</p><p>She went rocketing back while seeing stars and hit the ground hard, feeling her arm and shoulder shatter on impact to match her throbbing ribs, felt blood dripping inside the hazmat suit (which was a gross sensation) and skipped like a stone on a lake into the entryway of a far off hallway.</p><p><em>Ouch.</em> She thought feebly, brain barely conscious. Nose bleeding, probably busted. Skin around her eyes already turning purple and swelling. She bet she looked hot.</p><p>With a groan she was barely able to push herself up on her elbow to see back to the center of the room where the fruits of her plan would come together.</p><p>Mold-1 was groaning at the attack, no longer in one piece after what happened, and Jesse smirked.</p><p>“Later bud-dy.” She said and lifted her shaky hand, feeding into the magnetic power once more. But her palm was no longer the destination. It was the spot she’d touched. The eye. As if making that the positive and everywhere else she’d touched prior the negative. All at once the things she’d marked with her palm. The chunks of rubble. The tendril. The pods of pink came rocketing in on a line and colliding with the creature's center, causing a massive shockwave that pushed her further yet from her spot on the ground. And that kinda sucked. She growled in pain as she tumbled over her broken self into the corridor. She heard the room begin to shake and collapse and the creature let out one last cry as it imploded into pieces and then…. nothing. Just the echo of what had once been a beast.</p><p>Pieces of the thing rained down on Jesse from her spot on the ground, no longer smelling sweet but vile. This was nasty as hell, but she didn’t have the energy to do anything about it. She submitted to laying in her crumpled posture as the pain slowly faded to numb. She counted sheep.</p><p>Well, she’d die down here afterall. Finding a way to be helpful… then disappearing. Her grave under the Oldest House.</p><p>But then there was light on the back of her eye-lids. It was Polaris again. Desperately buzzing to get Jesse’s attention.</p><p>“I know…” She said with difficulty, and rather broken. “I’m sorry.” And her throat closed up as she thought about saying goodbye to her long-time confidant. Would they go to the next place together? Or…</p><p>But Polaris was focused on something, and actively trying to guide her there. Practically grabbing her neck and turning it. Jesse tried to follow and saw it. A Control Point had actually been established in this corridor. Probably the first team of Rangers that had found the source and never lived to tell anyone about it.</p><p>Polaris spun above the points here the two lines overlapped and insistently buzzed. Coaxing Jesse there. She scrunched her face.</p><p>“You… want me… there?”</p><p>The spinning echo grew louder. As if saying ‘that’s absolutely what I fucking want, now hurry.'</p><p>Jesse groaned, flipping herself onto her stomach and flinching in pain. Her one arm was useless, so she used the other, digging out in front of her little by little, pulling herself along the vines and the sand and whatever else she could cup her fingers into to drag herself inch by inch. She pressed off behind her with her boots and remaining, fading energy, to get her to that spot. She didn’t know why. Didn’t need to. She trusted Polaris with her life. In this moment, very literally.</p><p>Almost there. Breaking the outer perimeter. Now in the center and she felt it. A new sensation that she’d never gotten before. Polaris was practically yelling in her ear now.</p><p>
  <em>A little further Jesse. You can do it.</em>
</p><p>And then she was there and she closed her eye to let this new feeling fill her. It was like a greeting from a someone that was sure you’d met before and you’d forgotten. But she was slowly remembering this foreign feeling. She felt her senses all overlap. Could taste the sound and hear the colors as they fought behind her eyelids between white and black and red and Polaris told her, <em>tell it where you want to go.</em></p><p>And she did.</p><p>*******</p><p>Jesse landed on both feet at the Control Point she’d seen when she first entered the threshold and she inhaled like she’d been under water, stumbling and nearly falling backwards as she did. She was alive. And… she held out both hands in front of her. <em>Healed.</em></p><p>She felt her face, her arm, patted her legs and… nothing hurt anymore. Her ribs fresh as the day she got them. Her arm was firing on all cylinders. She was ok. She thought to pinch herself, then felt Polaris reassuringly buzz from inside her.</p><p>“Sorry I scared you.” She said quietly, smiling to them both, a little awed, mostly thrilled. Hard to believe they cheated death so readily. She was tempted to do a cartwheel. Hadn’t since she was like 6, but it seemed appropriate given the circumstance.</p><p><em>“You!</em>” She heard and turned to see Underhill coming toward her. The cartwheel would have to wait. The scientist didn’t look angry, which was a first, but more awed. “How did you- what’re you-?” The doctor’s brilliant mind could’t piece together what she was seeing, which was fair. And Jesse couldn’t really offer an explanation to her sudden change in location, so instead she circled back to her mission.</p><p>“I found the source of the mold problem.” She said. “And I handled it.”</p><p>“You- you killed it?” She said, almost outraged. “Honestly, you bureaucrats, I can’t believe you would so something so infantile and stupid. Have you any clue what I could have learned from a live sample?”</p><p><em>Wow the concern was touching</em>. Jesse looked down at her hazmat suit and held out her arms.</p><p>“How about a dead one?” She was still covered in pieces of it, some hanging in her hair (which was too gross to comment on) but a lot was coating the containment suit she was currently counting down the seconds til she could get out of.</p><p>Underhill eyed her a moment, until she looked down at the ‘specimen’ that had attached itself to her. She quietly considered her and then pulled a test tube and scraper from seemingly nowhere and approached her. Guess she was the type to always be ready.</p><p>“Hold still.” She instructed and filled the tube about 2/3rds full of gunk before sealing it with a cork and holding it up to study it better. She smiled thinly. “Well perhaps you’re not as much of a lost cause as I thought. Thank you for your help Agent.” She turned to head back toward her lab and Jesse almost corrected her on instinct. But she paused, kind of liking the way it rang. <em>Agent.</em></p><p>“Oh, and if you could get that lift working again, one of the ‘Old Rangers’ made their way up to the main levels.” Underhill called over her shoulder. As nonchalant as informing you that the weather called for rain and you may want an umbrella.</p><p>“Wait- <em>what?</em>” Jesse called back.</p><p>“The Old Rangers. You know, the ones that had submitted to the ‘appetite.’ One took the lift <em>you</em> so graciously left down for him.” Underhill said with a bit of bite, but again, no real urgency.</p><p>“How did he get this far?” She called out as Underhill was practically out of earshot.</p><p>“They waltzed past Andy and Steve. There’s a reason they weren’t sent on the expeditions.” She called out.</p><p>“Hey.” She heard one of the rangers from earlier, presumably Andy or Steve, say offendedly from down the corridor out of sight.</p><p>“Oh you know it’s true.” Underhill snarked.</p><p>Jesse turned back to look at the lift. How was she going to get outta here? She needed to take care of this thing and fast. Then she looked at the Control Point she stood over. I<em> wonder…</em></p><p>*******</p><p>Control Points were trippy as it turned out. It felt like her whole body was spinning, and the g-force and lights were both trying to consume her. Then just like that, she'd land wholly as herself, as if she’d just dashed up a 200ft corridor in a second flat. This time, landing at the Control Point in the base of Central Research. It was bonkers, but decidedly not the time to celebrate.</p><p>First she needed to take care of the escapee. If word got back to Dylan she’d let them out… this could still end up with her on his bad side.</p><p>Jesse sprinted up through the ground floor, rounding the corner by the cafeteria and saw plant box number #0184. Conversationally, Polly.</p><p>“Which way did he go?!” She called out, not breaking her stride.</p><p>The leaves and stalks bent slightly to the left, a helping hand. Nice to know some plants were still on her side.</p><p>“Thanks guys.” She called over her shoulder as she dashed up the stairs. <em>God it would be so much easier if she could just fly</em>. Probably wishful thinking.</p><p>She kept pace and saw it, the one that got away, going around the corner onto the ground floor, still a staircase ahead. She heard the gasps of the agents and office workers as they saw it, and she grit her teeth.</p><p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p><p>She raced one more dash, this one along the side of the railing and jumped off the ledge, pushing her energy upwards and grabbed the railing above with a grunt, pulling herself up and seeing it moving toward a group of people. She threw herself at it, crashing through a glass office window, and rolling in a tussle with the rancid body, until she had it pinned by its shoulder against the dark tacky carpet. She breathed heavy for a second from her mad chase and stared down at the once-person’s eyes. It opened its mouth as if to say something-</p><p>And instead projectile vomited onto her.</p><p>“<em>Sonofa-</em>“ She screamed, closing her eyes as the bile pelted her, feeling disrespected, disgusted, and fucking pissed. Her arm wound back and came smashing down with the otherworldly strength she knew she possessed. She heard the impact, heard it cry out in a shrill echo… then nothing. Only the sound of her heartbeat angrily pumping adrenaline through her.</p><p>When she opened her eyes she saw it had been essentially decapitated. Only a spattering in the carpet streaked out from the point of impact in blues and greens.</p><p>This was like last time... Only replacing the red for a cooler palette.</p><p>“Jesse?” A voice called gently.</p><p>She turned to see Emily leaning in the smashed remains from the window. Looking concerned, even in the backlight from the atrium.</p><p>
  <em>Well double shit.</em>
</p><p>Jesse panicked for the Doctor to see her like this… no way to explain this mess… stuck and sticky and truly at her worst.</p><p>Emily eased herself through the broken glass and came closer. Jesse expected her to turn and run. Away from this mess. Away from her…</p><p>But then she was before her, kneeling next to the mold person remains and ignoring them completely to look at her instead. Concerned, but… in a caring way. Concerned <em>for</em> Jesse… not <em>of </em>her. Jesse gulped not quite sure what to say.</p><p>Emily, thankfully took the lead.</p><p>“Let’s get you out of here. It’s gross as shit.”</p><p>*******</p><p>Jesse found herself with Emily in Ahti’s office maybe 15 minutes later. There was a sink in the corner that the doctor directed her toward and turned the water knobs, testing with her hand under the faucet until she was happy with the temperature. She guided Jesse to it, who nodded in thanks before catching a puddle of it in her hands and splashing it on her face. Again and again. She felt like maybe she could wash the whole world off of her, but those spores going first would be plenty.</p><p>She splashed the warm water onto her neck next, then decided it was finally time to rid herself of this suit. She peeled the collar back and pulled it down around her sweat and bile soaked undershirt, pooling the excess material around her waist. Probably going to just burn the whole thing. Feed it to the incinerator. She grabbed a rag from the bar over the sink and soaked it in the warm water, then rubbed the clingy material off her collar and arms.</p><p>When Jesse turned again she saw the good Doctor watching her carefully and suddenly felt very self-aware. What those dazzling green eyes were thinking was hard to imagine.</p><p>“Those things, they came from Underhill’s lab?” She asked. Jesse nodded.</p><p>“They weren’t the worst of it. I don’t recommend visiting.” Thinking of the giant specimen that had almost ended her. She wondered if that would come up in their sessions. Unpacking her apparent demise.</p><p>“How did you get tangled up in that?” Emily asked, that same careful concern.</p><p>A fair question and one that Jesse didn’t really have a good answer for. She wished she did, but how did you explain guilt leading you to make a rash decision of this magnitude? Involving yourself with so many forces you shouldn’t have and barely walking back from it?</p><p>She shrugged. Emily just continued to watch, knowing if she gave her time she’d open up. It was frustrating how easy it was to unbolt that safe around Dr. Pope. She eventually caved.</p><p>“Marshall mentioned it might be something I could help with… Underhill pointed me toward the Mold Chambers. It got… out of hand.”</p><p>“Marshall? Why did she bring you work to do?” She asked in that same tone.</p><p>“She didn’t. I went to her.” Jesse said ringing out her wet hair. Kind of true. Kind of dancing around it. “Aren’t you... concerned by what you saw me do?” She finally blurted. Unable to not address the chance for rejection. If it was going to happen, she didn’t want to keep dragging it out. Just rip it off like a band-aid, as her dad had used to say.</p><p>“Not as much as why you’d do it…” Emily said kindly. “I’ve read your files Jesse, I’m your doctor.”</p><p>“It’s different than seeing.” Jesse said smally. But Emily didn’t change her tune at all.</p><p>“I know of the kind of abilities you have, but suppress. Today doesn’t change anything… I just… was wondering why you put yourself in that position?”</p><p>Jesse swallowed. It sounded like genuine concern, and it almost hurt to have someone like her care for someone as insignificant as herself. <em>It didn’t change anything…?</em></p><p>“Dylan…” Was all she managed to say and as it turned out all she needed to. Polaris chimed in softly, as if putting a blanket over her shoulders. And she felt her composure returning.</p><p>
  <em>I wanted to prove my use. I wanted him to forgive. To see my value…</em>
</p><p>“You wanted to help your brother?” Emily concluded, giving a less-loaded take to her own inner monologue. Jesse shrugged.</p><p>“Yes and no…” The silence sat again. A really unfair method that worked like a charm on getting Jesse talking. “Ahti says that we are the things standing between the Bureau and disaster. Entropy… he calls it. Like how things seem to want to go wrong. Ice wants to melt. Metal wants to rust. Mold wants to grow. I just wanted… to make a difference.” She shook her head feeling foolish, and looked down at her feet.</p><p>The room was stuffy, and the smell latched onto the suit from before was making its way to her nose. She kept a set of sweats down her in the office for days with big messes. Before she thought better of it she walked over to her shelf with her VHS tapes and tool belt and gathered her folded clothes. She slid off the bottom of the hazmat suit and threw it into the corner, all too happy to be rid of it. Starting her own ‘To-Be-Burned’ pile in the corner.</p><p>Then she realized… she’d entirely disrobed in front of her therapist who, unless she was imaging, turned slightly red in the cheeks, at the sight of her black joggers sitting tight against her thighs. This was definitely not a page in doctor-patient relations.</p><p>“Sorry…” Jesse said, for some reason frozen in place. Feeling like a deer in the headlights.</p><p>“Hey, it’s alright. We’re both girls here right?” Emily laughed it off with a wave. Why did people keep saying that? Girls or not Emily was making her skin feel aflame from 1000 tiny pins of fire, spreading warmly along her arms and neck. It’s not that Jesse was self-conscious with how she looked. She just had to stop spacing out today. It was leading to increased complications. She nodded gratefully and slid her grey fitted pants on, feeling the wasitband sit comfortably where she liked it and seeing Emily turn respectfully to give her a moment to change. But when Jesse pulled her undershirt over her head, left standing in her functional black sports bra, she saw Emily turn back, curiosity outweighing posterity.</p><p>The good doctors eyes flashed quickly to her exposed ribs, and Jesse realized she’d never seen them. <em>The marks</em>… The ones she’d gotten from her encounters with… otherness.</p><p>“Those are…”</p><p>“Bound Objects of Power.” Jesse confirmed. Emily was at her side before she could even unfold her sweater. Her eyes belaying her immediate inquisitiveness.</p><p>On Jesse’s ribs were marks. The best way she could think to describe it was like tattoo’s of the Objects that had imprinted on her and vice versa. The Merry-Go-Round Horse, OOP-16, was painted in realistic detail along her ribs in black and white. The thing that had given her her ability to ‘evade’ as Trench and Darling had called it. Above it and slightly more centered on her back was OOP-9, the Brass Compass. That one she had inherited years after the first test, and she was sure it had been an accident, but there it was in all it’s glory. Giving her her magnetic abilities, which had come in clutch the past 24 hours. Around them both were symbols she had never questioned or understood, sprawling in patches and looking like something she’d seen once in a dream. A dream in a motel with doors all marked in similar fashion. Then smaller in size, the Altered-Items that had come in prolonged contact with were depicted with less detail but similarly. The Wolff Globe, (which had its own terrible story and memory attached to it, she was glad it was on her back where she couldn’t see it) the VHS Tape going up her shoulder, and the Hand Chair. Back when they were still testing her limits she’d had many encounters with AI… these three had deemed her passing grades.</p><p>She was sure that Emily could name off the their AI numbers like baseball cards. Tell you what city they originated in and what year the Bureau had come into contact. Even how their rookie season went. But right now she studied Jesse like a fine work of art, and Jesse was compelled to let her.</p><p>“I had seen the theory in the records of how the Director’s of the past would be left with imprints of the AI they themselves imprinted on.” She came a step closer, reaching out absently but not touching. As if parting an invisible curtain between them. “But I’ve never seen it documented on another host that hadn’t been chosen by the Board.”</p><p>Oh how she wanted to tell her.</p><p>The book. The strange message. The Rightful/Alternate Director.</p><p>There was so much to tell. And so much she didn’t understand.</p><p>“Do you know what the symbols mean?” Emily asked, walking around her slowly, studying the marks at all angles.</p><p>“No, can’t say that I do. They feel familiar… like…”</p><p>“Like you’ve seen them but can’t remember where?” Emily asked, filling in the blank, and then their eyes met in shared strands of thought.</p><p>“Yeah. Exactly.” Emily beamed at her admission.</p><p>“This shared sense of psychosis has to mean something. I bet we could figure it out in our next session, if that’s something you’d want to explore of course. If you think it would make you uncomfortable in anyway, then by all means we will take it off the table, but the theoretical possibilities to why that is is astounding, don’t you think?”</p><p><em>You’re astounding.</em> She almost says. Thankfully she bites her tongue. Like literally, chomps down on it (much to the amusement of Polaris) But Emily always had a way of brightening the things others would see as darkness. And it made her crave… that.</p><p>She realizes she hasn’t answered so nods, perhaps too quickly,</p><p>“Yeah, it could be something to look at. I’m game if you are.” She nodded and Emily looked positively giddy. She got the strangest image of her as a kid asking her dad to take apart the tv remote and put it back together, and that this was probably what she would have looked like in that moment. “Mind if I put a shirt on for now?” She added, meaning it as playful, but then noticing the way Emily’s eyebrows nearly shot off her face.</p><p>“Yes, yes, of course Jesse. Sorry, silly me just getting carried away in the moment.” Jesse smiled as she babbled, sliding the grey sweater over her head.</p><p>“Nah it’s fine. We’re both girls after all, right?” She used her words from earlier, and they still didn’t feel right. And she didn’t miss the subtle way Emily’s expression changed. But she didn’t have a word for it.</p><p>“That we are.”</p><p>Jesse turned to the corner of the room and tried to ignore the blush blossoming in her chest, busying herself by readying her bucket and her mop.</p><p>“What’re you doing?” Emily asked, watching her starting her next task.</p><p>“Going to clean up the mold.” She said, an obvious smirk on her cheeks. “I’m the janitor’s assistant. I’ve got a duty afterall.”</p><p>Emily smiled in that same kind, way. The way no one else did… Then she reached over and grabbed a secondary mop from the wall.</p><p>“Well, lead the way.” She said, slinging it over her shoulder.</p><p>“D- don’t you have other things to attend to? Besides <em>this</em>?” She gestured to the bucket, but Emily merely shook her head.</p><p>“Not as important as thwarting entropy.”</p><p>Polaris chirped in the back of her head again and Jesse had to agree.</p><p>
  <em>I know, I know… I like her too.</em>
</p><p>*******</p><p>They had worked their way up through the mostly abandoned levels of Central Executive, cleaning off the mold left behind from the runaway. It took a lot of bleach and elbow grease, and definitely helped having two sets of hands. She showed Emily how to widen her hips and get wider circles, and ever the student she took note and replicated it as if it were nuclear fission on the line.</p><p>After the day she’d had standing here with her like this… made all the difference. Normally she enjoyed talking with her. About Altered Items theories, or whatever unclassified parts of her work she could share, or about anything really. Maybe tell her about the mold monster she’d encountered, or ask what the deal with Underhill was. But this quiet between them was almost sacred. It was comfortable, like a set of hands holding her up, even though they were busy with a mop.</p><p>They finally had worked back to the body itself, now dissolved into a stain, which at least made the prospect of cleaning it easier. She was sure word of the attack had already gotten around about what had happened. She was sure there would be consequences. Emily noticed her distressed look and paused.</p><p>“Jesse?”</p><p>“Do you think… they’d take me from you?” She said furrowing her brow. There wasn’t much they could take. She’d lost her one possession today already. But her one connection… that was so so much worse to consider.</p><p>Emily’s look of concern was interrupted by a voice down the hall.</p><p>“Dr. Pope.” Dylan called, standing at attention with his arms behind his back. “I believe Darling was looking for you in his office.”</p><p>“Was it urgent? I could connect with him when we’re done.” Emily offered.</p><p>“He made it seem priority.” He countered, an air of finality. She looked apologetically toward Jesse, who offered her free hand for the mop. Their fingers brushed ever so softly as it switched from her to Jesse, and she felt that quick sharpness, but… different this time. Like she was going to miss it.</p><p>“We’ll talk more on Monday.” She said with a nod. Confirming, at least her stance on their potential separation.</p><p>Then the Doctor was moving away with a curt nod to the Director.</p><p>And then there were two Fadens…</p><p>Dylan turned back to her, shoulders sighing slightly and looked suddenly very… uncharacteristically emotional.</p><p>“Can we talk?” He asked.</p><p>*******</p><p>They found themselves sitting together in a secluded part of the Research Sector. Jesse sat on a table with one knee pressed into her chest, the other dangling.</p><p>Dylan sat beside her and sighed, unsure what to do with his hands before he settled on resting them in his lap.</p><p>“I… I owe you an apology Jess.” He said finally. She thought she’d been hit by a bus. “I got the record back from Langston on the book you left with them. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It’s potentially an OOP, hard to tell without conducting experiments and when I saw the results and thought of your warning… I told him to lock it up without further testing for now. I didn’t want to risk it before consulting you first, and… I didn’t want to consult you until I apologized for earlier.”</p><p>For the first time in a long time… she felt like she was talking to her brother again. The same little goofball she’d had to cut the crusts off of sandwiches for. The one who’s knees she’d clean when he fell off his bike. The one who she held the night after their parents disappeared, both crying, and promising to stay together no matter what.</p><p>That was who sat next to her, and he looked… concerned that he’d hurt her.</p><p>“I should have never accused you of such things.” He continued, his voice wavering slightly with emotion. He cleared his throat before starting again. “You have been nothing but loyal to me, to this branch and all others. You do everything that is asked of you and ask for very little for yourself.”</p><p>He shook his head and furled his bottom lip and Jesse reached out and took his hand in hers.</p><p>“It’s ok Dill.” She said, not wanting to see him distressed. “I forgave you.”</p><p>“But I haven’t forgiven myself.” Dylan said, turning to look at her and she saw his eyes glossy with built tears that hadn’t fallen. She was touched. “So, I <em>uh</em>,” He cleared his throat again, blinking profusely to shake off this lapse to his soft side. “I assumed you found it in here, right?” Dylan slid out a box from under the table Jesse hadn’t noticed. The staff lost and found. She nodded.</p><p>“Well, I can’t replace what I’ve done but, I thought.. maybe you’d like to take something new?” It was very unlike Mr. Perfect to try and do anything like this and Jesse smiled in a way she hadn’t in a long time. In a way only the two of them could.</p><p>“What would the Board of Director’s say?” She said mockingly worried. He shook his head.</p><p>“I won’t tell a soul. It’ll be our secret.” He held out his pinky in their everlasting pinky swear signature. She wrapped hers around his and now they were both smiling.</p><p>“How about I get to take <em>two</em> new things?” She said slyly and he laughed. He actually laughed.</p><p>“I mean there <em>is</em> a lot of good stuff in here. Look at this.” Dylan pulled out a singular balled up tissue and Jesse laughed now, pushing his hand farther away from the both of them.</p><p>“Burn that. And by that, I mean your hand.”</p><p>Jesse reached in next and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. They were interesting to say the least. Shaped like two red inverted pyramids.</p><p>“Hmm.” She slid them on over her eyes and held out her hands to Dylan. “How do I look?”</p><p>“Like a villain’s henchman in a Saturday morning cartoon.” He returned and she Pfft’d a laugh.</p><p>“Damn, the <em>henchman</em>?” And she slapped his shoulder playfully. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses that were tan and green plastic, shaped like cartoon palm trees with the palms over the eyes.</p><p>“I always thought I’d look smarter with glasses.”</p><p>“Well you couldn’t look any stupider.” Jesse said in their teasing way and he stuck his tongue out at her taunt. “Trade me.” She said, sliding off her red glasses and passing them to her brother.</p><p>She slid on the palm trees which looked ridiculous but made her happy. This was one of their best conversations in literal years. He didn’t look half bad with the red shades either. They both nodded as if they were in fashion and cracked a smile on their serious expressions.</p><p>“I think this is it. These are the two items I pick. One for me, one for you.” She said grinning, and his smile quivered for a moment. He cleared his throat again and nodded.</p><p>“I’m sorry… I haven’t been there for you Jess.” He said, looking at his lap again. “I’m just trying… I’m trying so hard to be what they want me to be. And I’m not sure I can.”</p><p>She slapped his shoulder gently to get his attention.</p><p>“You can. But you know, I can <em>help</em>.” She said back resolutely. He nodded.</p><p>“I know you can.. You’ve always come through for me. And I haven’t had many options. Darling’s all but locked himself away in his office saying he’s almost cracked something or other. And Trench has been…”</p><p>“Weird?” Jesse asked, remembering her brief moment seeing him earlier in the hall.</p><p>“Yeah. Extremely. I think he’s stressed out about NSC 2.”</p><p>
  <em>Ahhh, weren’t they all.</em>
</p><p>“Well, if you think of something I can help with, I will Dill.” She said reassuringly, bumping her knee against his and he nodded before titling his head to look back at her.</p><p>“Actually… there is something Langston mentioned needing help on.”</p><p>Jesse perked up. “Yeah?”</p><p>“What do you know bout the Investigations Sector?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ALRIGHT WE DID IT.</p><p>Ok the mold mission felt too good to pass on but damn it got out of hand. So I created the new OOP cause why not? (Brass Compass) that gave her magnetic powers which I thought sounded really cool. So she can magnetize herself, or other things to her, or tap a negative and positive on two different objects.</p><p>Then came the tattoo head cannon that I loved and wanted to work into something.</p><p>Then the soft Dylan/Jesse moment. Their relationship its really interesting to study in any sense but especially this one.</p><p>Thanks for reading! What were your favorite parts? :) I’m always curious.</p><p>Til next time!</p>
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